Watch the newest Summit Semester Experience Video for a glimpse into the three months where students ask and work toward answering life's biggest questions with a community of like-minded young adults.

If the Bible never makes you uncomfortable, it’s a safe bet you’re not reading the Bible as it was intended. And as American Christians adapt to a culture that seems to have made up its mind to redefine marriage and sexuality, our approach to the unfashionable doctrines of Scripture is a bellwether of our spiritual health.

Is the point of social science to understand reality, or to win political arguments?
In a recent study analyzing over 500 children of same-sex couples from a sample of 207,000 respondents to the National Health Interview Survey, Sullins found marked increases in “the risk of clinical emotional problems, developmental problems, or use of mental health treatment services” among children raised by homosexual couples.

What you think about God and his creation are the two most important aspects of who you are. You can’t have a corrupt root system and get righteous fruit from it. Throughout scripture, we see that God has a heart for people in cities. Adam had his Eden, Jesus had his Jerusalem, David had his Bethlehem. Paul said, “I have to get to Rome.” Chris Brooks has his Detroit.

Special Blog Entry From: The President's Desk

When cities come unraveled, everyone with the means to do so leaves. Only the poorest and most vulnerable remain, poorer and more vulnerable than ever. Some say such problems inevitably result from urbanization. But like it or not, cities are the future. In 1800, only 3 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. By 2050, it is estimated two-thirds of the world’s population will live in large cities.

Read/Download our Monthly Publication: The Journal

With riots in Ferguson, MO and growing anger around race relations in the U.S. the Jan./Feb. Journal addresses urban apologetics: Read an excerpt from Chris Brooks' book on why the socialist option for urban problems will never work, learn from President Myers' insights on Ferguson, Detroit, and America, and browse Doc's clippings on higher education.

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Worldviews in the News

MPs have voted in favour of the creation of babies with DNA from two women and one man, in an historic move.
The UK is now set to become the first country to introduce laws to allow the creation of babies from three people.
In a free vote in the Commons, 382 MPs were in favour and 128 against the technique that stops genetic diseases being passed from mother to child.
During the debate, ministers said the technique was "light at the end of a dark tunnel" for families.
A further vote is required in the House of Lords. It everything goes ahead then the first such baby could be born next year.
Proponents said the backing was "good news for progressive medicine" but critics say they will continue to fight against the technique that they say raises too many ethical and safety concerns.

Icelanders will soon be able to publicly worship at a shrine to Thor, Odin and Frigg with construction starting this month on the island’s first major temple to the Norse gods since the Viking age.
Worship of the gods in Scandinavia gave way to Christianity around 1,000 years ago but a modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in Iceland.
“I don’t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding about on a horse with eight feet,” said Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, an association that promotes faith in the Norse gods.
“We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.”
Membership in Ásatrúarfélagið has tripled in Iceland in the last decade to 2,400 members last year, out of a total population of 330,000, data from Statistics Iceland showed.

American Pastor Saeed Abedini has written a letter from his Iranian jail cell to President Obama thanking him for meeting with his wife and kids.
Last week, President Obama met with Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, and their two children, Rebekka and Jacob, and promised to make Pastor Saeed’s freedom a “top priority,” even telling Jacob that he “will try” to work to get Pastor Saeed home by Jacob’s birthday in March.
Yesterday, Pastor Saeed told a family member in Iran who was able to visit him that President Obama’s willingness to take the time to meet with his wife and kids greatly encouraged him.

Less than a week after Niger's president marched alongside dozens of world leaders in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Muslim protests in Niger have claimed the lives of 10 people and destroyed more than 70 Christian churches in the desert nation's two largest cities.
Niger, long praised for its secular government and relative tolerance towards Christians (more than 98 percent of its population are Muslim), has seen growing radicalization in recent years. In 2012, several churches in the country’s second-largest city, Zinder, were vandalized by mobs in response to a provocative video, The Innocence of Muslims. This led Open Doors to add Niger to its 2013 ranking of the 50 countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian. (Niger was removed from this year's World Watch List, although persecution levels remain virtually the same.)
The weekend protests started in Zinder on Friday (Jan. 16) and spread to surrounding areas before reaching the capital, Niamey, on Saturday.

Duke University announced this week it would allow the traditional Muslim call to prayer from the Duke Chapel bell tower. The reaction from some Christian groups was angry, and today the private university in Durham, N.C., reversed course.
"Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students," Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, said in a statement. "However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect."
Traditional Muslim Friday prayers, which are currently held in the Duke Chapel's basement, will now take place in the quadrangle outside the chapel, the statement said. The location is used for interfaith programs and activities.
More than 700 of the university 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students identify as Muslim.

The England and Wales office of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) may lose more than 350 missionaries and their families by April in the wake of British immigration officials suspending the ministry's visa sponsor status.
“Whilst we recognize and support the [UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) office's] legitimate right to concern over compliance to the rules, we do not feel that the issues raised in the letter from the UKVI justify such a draconian outcome as losing our license would produce,” wrote YWAM Harpenden in an "urgent request" sent Friday and highlighted by the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK).
Following a September audit related to the UK's attempt to reduce immigration numbers, UKVI officials found that YWAM had erred in two out of the seven areas audited. While the missions organization says it “immediately” submitted a corrective action plan to the government, the UKVI warned that YWAM could be downgraded, limited in its visa sponsorship capacity, or lose its license over the errors.

There's an idea that Christianity in America is dying. No serious researcher—not one—thinks that. However, I still am surprised that some people think this. Facts are our friends, in this and in every situation, and what do the facts really show about the situation? A few years ago, LifeWay Research did some significant research on the faith of young adults to see where they stood. Here are a few stats from that study: 73% of unchurched 20- to 29-year old Americans consider themselves “spiritual” because they want to know more about “God or a higher supreme being.”; 89% of unchurched young adults say they would listen to what someone believes about Christianity.; 63% of young adults said they would attend church if it presented truth to them in an understandable way “that relates to my life now.”; 58% of 20-somethings would be more likely to attend if people at the church “cared for them as a person.”

American college campuses are dangerous places. On our campuses, women are sexually assaulted in alarming numbers. Men are being hauled before campus sex tribunals, many of which lack any semblance of due process. United Educators, an insurance company owned by 1,160 member colleges and universities, reported that between 2006 and 2010, student-perpetrated sexual assault cases cost $36 million in losses to its member schools. Accusing students and accused students sue their schools in almost equal numbers.

Three months ago Wheaton College, one of America’s leading evangelical undergraduate institutions, hired Julie Rodgers to provide spiritual care for students. Not surprising in some ways: She has a master’s degree in English, has mentored inner-city youth, and speaks at Christian churches and conferences. One surprise: She openly identifies as homosexual.
“The best way I can describe my experience of ‘being gay,’” Rodgers, 28, wrote on her blog, “is that with certain women I feel the ‘it’ factor: that sense of chemistry that longs to share life with them. … Most women feel that chemistry or longing for other men … while I usually feel like ‘bros’ with men.”
Wheaton, located just west of Chicago, sees homosexual behavior as sin. Rodgers, though, is a “gay celibate Christian”—someone who identifies as homosexual but does not act on her same-sex desires because she also believes such behavior is sinful.